The Revingston Monster Removal Service
by CzarSoza
Summary: The small town of Revingston, Ohio, has a strange problem; monsters. Monsters are a fairly regular fact of life here, an everyday environmental nuisance like the weather. Or, more accurately, wild animals. To solve this strange problem, one resident created a strange solution; The Revingston Monster Removal Service. This man had a son named Oliver Irons, and this is his story.
1. A Late Summer Day

August 1983

Revingston, Ohio

* * *

"There's no way that's gonna work," Oliver said, looking up from his rolling paper and tobacco to give Kevin a stern glance. "It'll just warp and mess up the barrel. And explode. And kill you."

Kevin just grinned back, eyes flashing, holding up the half of the railroad spike he had haphazardly stuffed into the shotgun shell. In front of him was his field kit for making ammunition, along with a spread of shell husks, a box of powder, wads and a variety of loads. Cold Iron slugs, bags of rock salt, silver ball bearings, Celestial Bronze shards, and more. This particular invention, a Cold Iron stake stuffed into a shotgun shell with a magnum powder load, looked ridiculous, like a Jenga tower made of bad ideas. But Kevin was undeterred by the nonsense in his hands, and just said, "Yeah, and the Fang that gets me, too. Enough shards of this little beaut'll get him, right there," he poked it into his own chest, yelping a bit at the razor-sharp tip, but quickly carrying on. "And paralyze him, so y'all can then avenge me."

Kevin Brightwood was Oliver's oldest and best friend, but you probably wouldn't be able to tell from looking at the two. Where Oliver was tall and wiry, Kevin was short and muscular. Where Oliver had a mess of curly light brown hair and dark eyes, Kevin rocked a patchy blonde buzz-cut he did himself, and bright green eyes that had an equal shine of intelligence and something that wasn't quite madness but certainly off-kilter. He worked for Mr. Bruno at the local auto-shop, and his surprisingly nimble hands were permanently covered in scars and oil stains. His denim vest, which was a denim jacket until he got a sleeve caught in the transmission of a station wagon and decided to tear the other one off to make it match, was similarly stained.

Nina, who had been tuning her neon-green guitar right beside him, leaned over and said, "Or, it'll just kill you, and the Fang'll look at you and go, 'Wow, that was stupid, guess I'll eat him now'."

She tried to grab it but Kevin was quite a bit bigger and shoved her away, "Or he'll go, 'Oh, nevermind, that chick who's trying so hard to look like she has a frickin' snowman on her head really deserves it more.'"

"Screw you, but at least I'd kill the Fang like a normal person," She huffed with a flick of white hair, stabbing a finger glittering with a silver ring first towards the crossbow on the table, and then to the large knife on her hip. "Bolt to heart to lock 'em up, knife to cut off his head, just as God intended."

She and Kevin were twins in name only. Nina was the lead guitarist in a local band, Sygnas, during her free time, and wanted everyone to know it. From her huge mane of dyed white hair to the black leather jacket covered in colorful band patches and pins to the torn black jeans held up by a silver chain. Metal studs and spikes were festooned everywhere she could fit them, from the black bracelets and gloves around her hands to the big black leather boots on her feet.

Oliver just shook his head as the siblings continued to argue, sparing a glance at Denali. The most mature of them was doing the sensible thing; reading a Stephen King book and minding his own damned business. He was Shawnee Indian, with deeply tanned skin, long black hair tied back in a braid and deep blue eyes. He had on a buckskin jacket, pants and boots, and he wore a necklace of protective charms around his neck. Denali was from a nearby reservation and his father was the medicine man of the village, providing assistance when dealing with threats of a spiritual nature. Denali, however, focused on more practical matters; he was their tracker and a fine one at that. He's single-handedly saved more hunts than the rest of them put together, killed more Cryptids than any one of them, and has said less than a thousand words in the eight months he's worked with the Revingston Monster Removal Service.

Oliver envied him sometimes. He reached over, turned up the radio sitting on his end of the table, relocated there after the twins almost broke the thing over their argument of what to listen to. The day was nice; the four of them sat at a table at the firing range, an isolated bit of forest on the edge of Revingston, Ohio. A small creek ran through one side of the property leading to a pond, and the large shed containing the weapons rested under a canopy of trees. Kevin's old, busted pickup truck, the Hetfield, was parked next to the shack, the bed packed with gear. A wide array of targets were arranged in the clearing ahead of them, going out to about two hundred yards. Oliver's father, Malachi Irons, had built the range when he had first moved here, approaching thirty years ago. Now it served as a fine place for the team of them to rest, talk, and pass the time until they got a call.

It was a pleasant summer afternoon, but the occasional crimson leaf served as a reminder that it wasn't going to last for much longer. Winter and Autumn in their profession was always the busiest time of the year; it was when all of the nasty winter Cryptids (that is, supernatural creatures) started prowling around the forests and hills. Combined with the cold and snow and wind, it was always a pain. But the snow won't come until at least September or, if they were really lucky, October. They had a month and some change before things got crazy.

Oliver finished rolling his cigarette and was just about to stick it into his mouth when he heard the radio in the Hetfield crackled to life, a familiar voice calling, "Chaves calling Irons, Chaves calling Irons."

He tucked the cigarette behind his ear, carefully put the others in a box and put the box in his jacket pocket, and walked over, reaching through the open window and picking up the receiver, "Good morning Chief, how can I help you today?"

Police Chief Chaves responded cheerfully, "Good morning Oliver. I just got a call from Bill Tucker, he's got a problem for y'all to solve. Usual fare, I think; he said that one of his cows turned up dead last night."

Oliver nodded while picking up the small, worn notebook on the dashboard and one of the pens in the cupholder. In a town like Revingston, livestock was a big deal. He tucked the receiver between his cheek and pressed the tip to the paper. He asked, "He give you any details to pass along to me?"

Oliver heard papers shuffling in the background, "Uh yeah, he said that the cow had puncture wounds on the neck, hind legs and back and that it's skin was dry and cold to the touch. He also said he saw tracks around the body, but he isn't sure what to make of them. Think it's another pack of Chuppas?"

Oliver began writing the information down, realized the pen was dead, got another and wrote it, and then said, "Possible, although it is a little late in the summer for a pack of Chupacabra to be prowling around. We'll check it out, thanks Chief. Bill Tucker's place is over on Randolph, right? With the tree that got hit by lightning a couple years back?"

He could hear Chaves check some papers, "Yeah, that's the one. Left at the tree, follow that road for about three hundred yards, you'll see a cornfield, just follow it and you'll get there in no time. You got that?"

Oliver wrote the directions at the bottom, "Yeah, got it. Thanks, Chief, have a good day. Oh, how's Officer Roberts doing? I heard he got sick or something, is he doing good?"

"Yeah, he's doing good, he broke his fever a few nights ago so he'll be back in action in no time."

He put the notebook down, stuck the cigarette in his mouth and started fishing around for his Zippo, "That's great, tell him I said hi. Alright, you have a good day Chief."

"You too, Oliver. Happy hunting."

He hung up the radio, found the Zippo and walked back to the table. Kevin and Nina were arguing about something, but Nina got quiet when she saw the look on Oliver's face as he approached. She punched her brother in the shoulder and said, "What we got, Ollie?"

Oliver lit the cigarette and picked up his shotgun from the table, the one carved with twenty-two notches on the stock, and said, "Bill Tucker found one of his cows dead last night. Might be a pack of late-blooming Chuppacabra, but be ready for anything. Mount up."

They gathered weapons and climbed into the Hetfield, twins in the front, Oliver and Denali in the bed. The bed of the truck had all kinds of tools and equipment; ammunition, rope, hooks, axes, hammers, nails, scrap wood, some wire and bolt cutters, cans of gas, lanterns, bug spray, and more. Several large tarps were layered over the bed, and Oliver scrunched up his nose as he climbed in. It still smelled like sulfur and bleach, and he choked the odor down as he yelled back, "Christ Kevin, I told you to clean this thing!"

Kevin looked back at him, sunglasses on his face and cigarette in his mouth, giving him a shrug, "Sorry man, got distracted. We pickin' up Rosa?"

Oliver nodded, "Yeah, we'll swing by. See if you can get her on the radio first, though. You of all people should know she don't like surprises, Kevin."

That got a laugh out of Nina and a slight smile from Denali while Kevin muttered something and slid a Metallica cassette into the speaker system. The truck tore off onto the dirt road, music blasting, equipment rattling and bouncing and smacking into each other. Oliver was rocked around for a few minutes as he tried to get a secure position in the bed of the truck before he found it, settling his shotgun into his lap and resting his head against the back of the truck cabin. They drove through the backroad for a few minutes before coming onto the main, although it was still pretty hilly and forested. The range was only a few minutes away from downtown, where Rosa worked, and they could get onto Randolph Lane from there.

Oliver heard the sliding window open and Nina's head poked through, a big grin on her face, her hair barely fitting through with her. He looked at her, keeping his deadpan face. She just waggled her eyebrows at him. He rolled his eyes, sighed out smoke and held out the cigarette to her. She snatched it from his hand, said, "Thanks, Ollie!" And dove back into the cabin.

Oliver shook his head, gave Denali a shrug when he gave him a questioning look, and lit a new cigarette from his pack. As they got closer to downtown, buildings began to sprout up and the trees began to thin into fields. They passed a few farms, some service stations and finally the old, busted water tower which unofficially marked the beginning of the Revingston township. He started seeing other drivers on the road, most of which waved at Oliver as they passed, with a few of the more enthusiastic honking or, in one case, yelling. Oliver allowed a small, private smile to play across his mouth. He had to admit, it felt good being recognized for the hard work they did.

They were in downtown proper now; the big old town commons with its numerous little local businesses and stores. The big fountain ringed by benches, the little patches of green scattered everywhere they could fit. He saw Harlow Arms and Ammo, the Military Surplus, the King James Bar and Pub, and the other familiar locations. They passed by the police station, waving to the officers inside as they did, and parked in front of Velasquez's Flower Shop. Oliver banged on the cabin roof and asked Kevin, "You manage to raise her on the radio?"

Kevin nodded, and before he could speak the door to the florist opened with a dainty jingle of bells, and Rosa stepped out. Rosa Velasquez was not what one would expect from the daughter and assistant to a florist; she was tall, as tall as Oliver, but just as muscular as Kevin, with black hair tied back in a ponytail and dark eyes like shards of obsidian. She was currently wearing jeans, boots and a green tank top with the shop's logo on it, a happy sunflower with a sombrero and big mustache, and was drying her hands off with what looked like an apron. She looked at Oliver, nodded, and went back inside. A minute later, she returned, carrying a massive machete in a sheath in place of the apron and wearing a plain brown leather jacket, a steel plate woven to connect to the left sleeve.

She saw Kevin in the driver's side and groaned, pointing at him with the sheathed machete as she approached, "You guys are letting him drive? Again?"

Kevin held up his hands in defense and shirked a bit, even though he had a steel door between him and Rosa, "Look, I'm sorry, I've said it a thousand times Rosa, you shouldn't have been sitting in the back when-"

She cut him off. Literally; she slashed the air with her sheathed blade and whirled on him, "You ramped off of the goddamn train tracks, Kevin! I was sitting in the way back, where there ain't no seatbelts! I'm lucky all I got was some hang time and bruises."

Oliver banged on the roof, "Alright, enough. We have business Rosa, could be a pack of Chupacabra lurking around Bill Tucker's place. Killed one of his cows. You in?"

Rosa kept her eyes on Kevin for a few seconds before nodding and climbing into the bed, "You know I am. Someone's gotta keep an eye on him, right?" She jerked her chin at where Kevin sat as he pulled back out onto the street.

The five of them took off, rumbling down the street as the summer sun shone down from above.

Just another day of work ahead of them.


	2. The Tucker Farm

August 1983

Revingston, Ohio

* * *

Bill Tucker's farm was a hundred acres of corn stalks and livestock grazing fields. A large green-painted two-story ranch house sat on a low hill with an equally large barn a little ways away from it, connected via a gravel path. A big forest lay at the edge of the property, just beyond the livestock fence, and a squat wrought iron gate stood open in their way, stretching in both directions for a few hundred yards before linking up with the fence. The fields were spread out to the right side of the property, from their perspective, and green stalks went on for as far as Oliver could see. A pair of large farming machines were parked near the barn, along with a pickup truck in the driveway. As they trundled down the path towards the house, Oliver subconsciously started scanning the ground for clues but didn't find anything of interest near the main path. He spared a glance at Denali, who shook his head in return. Nothing out front. He had filled the rest of the team in on what Chief Chaves had told him during the drive, so they had at least some idea of what to look out for.

They parked right behind the pickup, which he now saw was full of huge bags of fertilizer, twenty pounds at least. A few of them were empty, with long cuts along the top and a little bit of green powder scattered around the bed. Oliver noticed that the truck was sort of busted up; both the bumper and grill had nasty dents in them. He glanced up at the windshield. Not a scratch. Odd. Oliver thought he saw something else and crouched down, slinging his pump-action over his shoulder and pulling a pair of sturdy work gloves from his pocket and slipping them on. Sure enough, the metal had a little smear of some kind of dark gunk near the bottom, and Oliver produced his hunting knife from the sheath on his hip. He scrapped a bit of the gunk off with the tip of the knife and held it up, smelling it. Copper. Definitely dried blood.

Oliver heard his father talking in the back of his mind, long lessons in smoky rooms spent pouring over papers and maps, rock music playing through the beat-up old radio on the table. "The details, Oliver." He would say, his voice like sandpaper as he leaned back in his chair. "Leave the tracking to the tracker, leave the patchin' up to the sawbones. Let your team do their jobs. Listen to them, take their council, but let them do their job. _Your_ job is to take all the bits of detail, every little fragment, every little thread, every little string and weave'em together into a plan that won't get you and your team killed. You understand me, boy? 'Cause if you make a plan, and you missed the fact that the migration patterns for your suspected monster don't add up, or didn't make the connection that the phases of the moon correlated to the sightings or some other detail that didn't seem important, then what happens when you put that plan into motion is on you. No one else. You."

Oliver turned and asked, "Denali, you got a bag?"

Denali handed him a small plastic bag and Oliver rubbed the weird gunk off into it, handing it back to the tracker who took it without a word. He gestured at the dents and blood with his knife and asked no one particular, "Think he hit one of the Chuppas?"

Kevin inspected the bumper and frowned, "Maybe, but it would've been one bigass Chuppa. They don't grow to be much bigger than a coyote, right? A coyote-sized animal wouldn't have done this to no damn pickup bumper. Whatever did this must've been as big as a deer, at least, which would make it, what, the third or fourth biggest Chupacabra we have on record, right?"

Oliver shrugged, "I don't know off the top of my head. I'll have to check the records at the library later."

Nina smirked as she walked around the side of the truck, inspecting it from various angles for damage, "Anything else you wanna do at the library, Oliver? Spend some quality time with a certain librarian assistant, perhaps?"

Oliver felt a rush of heat race up his neck, and he quickly said, "Kevin, what about the windshield? It doesn't look like it's gotten hit with anything harder than some bugs."

Kevin fought down a smirk of his own and looked at the windshield, and then back down at the grill and said, "It must've gone under the chassis then, in which case it might have fucked up the suspension, transmission, driveshaft, all kinds of fun stuff. I'll bet you ten bucks if I start that thing it'll just burst into flames or something."

Rosa spoke up, "Didn't Chaves say he found the cow the morning after it was killed? Why didn't he mention to Chaves that he hit one of the little bastards with his truck? Isn't it the law that the Bureau has to be informed on every monster sighting in the county?"

Oliver answered as he rose to his feet, "Well, all Chaves said was that Bill Tucker found one of his cows dead and that it was killed last night. He didn't mention any series of events or specifics, but that's what we're here to find out. For all we know he might've just hit a plain old deer a while back and didn't mention it because there was nothing _to_ mention."

Kevin raised an eyebrow and asked, "Then why did you take that sample if it might be nothing?"

Oliver looked him dead in the eyes, his best deadpan expression on, "Because I'm a paranoid son of a bitch, Kevin, and if there's some kind of foul play going on I don't want Bill Tucker knowing what we know. Don't mention this to him; we'll test the blood back at base, and if it's nothing, it's nothing."

"And if it's something?"

The facade cracked as the corner of Oliver's lip turned up, "Then this gets interesting."

Kevin grinned back, and the rest of the walk up the rest of the path towards the house was mostly quiet until he heard Kevin say, "Five bucks say the cow's body is within a hundred yards of the forest, and five says he didn't hit a Chuppa and didn't say nothing cause it ain't nothing."

Oliver glanced over and responded, "I'll take that bet. I think it's within, uh, seventy-five yards, and I'll say that he did hit a Chuppa, just to make it fun. No money on this, but how many Chuppas do you think we'll find? I say at least five, to take down a cow."

Kevin thought it over and answered, "Yeah, I think five too. They ain't much bigger than a coyote, so I suppose it would take a full pack to kill a cow. Plus they're poisonous so that probably helped."

The walk was silent for a few more seconds before Nina cut in, her huge black boots crunching against the gravel, "Venomous."

"What?" Kevin asked.

"You said Chupacabra are poisonous, but the term is venomous."

"What's the difference?"

They were on the porch of the house now; it ringed around the front of the house, with a big wicker rocking chair and a small table next to it. A few tacky windchimes sang in the breeze The table was covered in a few cheap beer cans and a nearly-full ashtray of cheap smelling cigarettes. Nina and Kevin faced each other from across the table as Oliver walked up to the door and Denali and Rosa hanged back, watching the two go at it from a safe distance.

The discussion continued with Nina giving an annoyed sigh and stating, "Kevin, I swear to God I told you this before; Venom is injected, while poison is ingested."

"You just said the same word twice."

Oliver sighed and knocked on the door, using the big brass knocker in the shape of a bull. Kevin was one of the smartest guys he knew when it came to machines, explosives, weapons, or just about anything else involving tools. He made most of their custom shotgun shell loads and Rosa's machete to name only a few things. The guy knew his way around a workshop. But God he was dense sometimes.

"No, I said injected which is like a rattlesnake bite and I said ingested like eating Wolfsbane or Shade of the Evening."

"Well, wouldn't a Chupacabra be poisonous too, smartass, since it's venomous?"

"Only if you eat the venom sack, dipshit, which you totally would."

"Oh, so they _are_ poisonous!"

"Oh my fucking God, I am going to kill you so hard."

The door opened and Oliver damn near sighed in relief as Bill Tucker stepped onto the porch, and the twins shut up. The farmer was getting into his years, his thinning copper-colored hair and beard were streaked through with threads of silver, and a pair of square wire-rimmed spectacles covered dark brown eyes. He wore jeans, boots and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing arms corded with muscle. Farm work was hard work, and Bill Tucker's been doing it for more than thirty years. A corn cob pipe hung out of his mouth, smoldering with sweet-smelling tobacco. He cradled a double-barreled shotgun in his arms, peering at Oliver over the rim of his glasses, taking the pipe out of his mouth and asking, "Thought your daddy would have been the one to come, Irons. Where is he?"

Oliver felt his eye twitch, but he answered calmly, "My father stopped doing fieldwork last year, Bill. After the Halloween Festival. You know that you saw what happened to him, to his leg. Hell, just about everyone knows, everyone saw what happened. So you gonna show us the body, or just stand there flappin' your gums at me all day, or what?"

Bill looked at him for a long few seconds, smoking his pipe and narrowing his eyes at Oliver before he bared his teeth in an odd sort-of smile and said, "Just checking if you inherited your old man's spine is all. C'mon, I'll show you where ol' Betsy bit it."

Bill walked out, locked the door behind him and walked down the porch, appraising each of the team members and grunting and moving on down the path. Oliver looked back at his friends, gave a look like, 'Let's get this over with.' and followed Bill Tucker down the path towards the woods. After a few seconds, he heard them follow behind him, six pairs of boots crunching against gravel and dirt.

The afternoon was warm and pleasant, with a slight breeze carrying the smell of freshly cut grass and manure, the sky clear and blue. A herd of maybe twenty cows grazed in the field and a flock of chickens pecked and fought each other for seeds. It was idyllic countryside, so wholesome and American it belonged on a postcard. And then the wind changed, and he caught the smell of blood. He glanced at Denali, and the tracker nodded. He smelled it too. Bill lead them through the gate for the grazing field and Denali shut it as he walked through it, scanning the ground like a bloodhound. Bill Tucker looked at him and chuckled, talking around his pipe. "You should really tell your Injun to relax a little, Irons. Only beasts out on this property are him and the cows."

Denali looked up from the path and narrowed his eyes at Bill's back, while Rosa also glared at the farmer, and she cracked her knuckles. They both shifted their gaze to Oliver as they reached for their machete and feathered tomahawk, respectively, silently asking for permission. Oliver shook his head and made a motion with his hand, saying to Bill, "He's just a little jumpy, is all. It's pretty late in the year for a pack of Chupacabra to be out and about, so we're just tryna make sure there's nothing else weird goin' on around here. Speaking of, did you had an encounter with Chupacabra or any other animal last night? Or did you just find the body this morning?"

Bill scratched at his red beard, "Naw, didn't see or hear nothin last night; I was having my weekly poker game with Horace, Jerry, and Lincoln. I was just about swimming in a lake of Jack Daniels by midnight, though, so maybe they heard something I didn't. I just found Betsy this mornin'. See, I got up real early to fertilize the grass seeds around the edge of the fence, since I had done some land renovatin' a few months ago, and I had only put down a couple of bags before I saw her. Saw the tracks, saw the bite marks and the fact she ain't got no goddamn blood, that's when I put in the call." He pointed forward, "And there she is. Poor girl."

They were close to the forest now, a hundred yards or so, with the livestock fence separating the field from the large, looming Alder trees. The ground near the fence was turned-up dirt scattered with green buds and green dust. The body of Betsy was still about a dozen yards away or so, but Oliver could still make out a few details. The body was gray and shrunken, the skin tightly wrapped around the skeleton frame. A crow the size of a small cat was perched on Betsy's neck, a ribbon of dry flesh dangling from its razor-sharp beak. Bill saw the crow and bellowed, "You get your dirty fuckin' claws offa her you sonovabitch!" Leveling his double-barreled shotgun and firing a shot just above the crow's position.

The gun roared, buckshot ripping through the treeline in a burst of wood shrapnel and leaves. Oliver's right ear started ringing and his hand flew up to cup it, pain exploding through his skull. He heard the yells of his friends and was vaguely aware of an impressive array of obscenities being slung through the air. He grabbed the barrel of the gun, the metal burning his hand, and shoved it down before the idiot could shoot again. The crow took off, it's prize clamped tight in its jaws, as Oliver shouted at Bill Tucker, fury racing up his veins like his blood had turned to gasoline, "Do not fucking shoot without warning! You..." He managed to compose himself, and he motioned for his team to calm down before saying. "Warn us next time before firing your gun, so we can put in our ear protection first."

Bill Tucker squinted at him, biting down hard on the corncob pipe in his mouth, "Listen to me now, boy, and listen good. You ain't worked on a farm before and you sure as shit ain't ran a farm before, and because of that I'll tell you this; each of those cows you see before you, each one grazing in that field, is worth nearly twelve hundred dollars a head. Now, it is bad enough that I got some god-forsaken pack of monsters sulking around my land, but then I have to watch some scavenger pick apart her body? You oughta understand, not all of us have such a cool head or stable source of income. So why don't you go over there, and start collecting yours, huh?"

Oliver met his gaze evenly, mulling the prospect over in his head. He wasn't fond of Bill Tucker. Didn't like his attitude, didn't like his lack of firearm safety and especially did not like the remark he made about Denali. All of that, paired with the leaden feeling in his stomach that something wasn't right with this guy, all contributed to Oliver's opinion of the man. But the Occult Prevention and Investigation Bureau, often referred to as simply the Bureau, paid a hundred dollars for a Chupacabra body, more depending on size and age. And besides, if they let these Chupacabra run free they'd undoubtedly hibernate, multiply and become an even bigger problem come Spring.

He deliberately reached into the pocket of his Vietnam-era army jacket, retrieved a hand-rolled cigarette, stuck it in his mouth and said, "Alright, Bill Tucker. Just stay out of our way, right? Hate to see you end up like poor old Betsy."

Bill bit his cheek, studied Oliver for several long seconds and then gave a small, mean smile, saying, "Be my guest, Oliver Irons. Just don't end up like your old man, eh?" He turned and walked back up the trail, resting the shotgun on his shoulder, calling back. "And make it quick, boy! I still have fertilizer to put down!"

Rosa spat on the ground in his direction, "Hey Oliver, can we beat his ass after we get this done?"

Oliver lit the cigarette and shrugged, "I'm thinking about it. Let's get this done first, then I'll let you know." He waved a hand forward, towards the body of Betsy. "Alright, let's get paid."


End file.
